The Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar

Used on "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

And guess what we came up with for Bill Wyman? Do you remember those Plexiglas body basses that were around then?

I checked with David Hood later and he says it was a Dan Armstrong. So to the best of our recollection, that’s what it was. He played through David’s Fender Bassman setup, the tube head and separate box.

(...) Did you have a mic on the bass amp?

Yes, the bass guitar mic was an RCA 44. We didn’t have direct back in those days.

An image of Hood's Bassman rig, taken from this March 1, 2019 al.com interview, reveals that it was an AB165.

That said, the bass amplifier rig Hood used for his classic Muscle Shoals Sound Studios work is a Fender Bassman amp head and blonde Fender speaker cabinet.

In 2016, Muscle Shoals Sound reopened at original Sheffield location 3614 Jackson Hwy. and restored to retro ’60s/'70s prime. Hood’s rig was returned to the same spot it was during many vintage sessions. Against the studio wall, just left of the drum booth.

Hood thinks he acquired the Fender head and cabinet in the mid to late '60s.

"My father was in the tire business and got hooked up with a purchasing-agent-type place who would connect you with people to buy things wholesale," Hood says. "They hooked us up with Manny's Music in New York, on 48th Street. It's no longer there, but it was a famous music store. I would call and order things from them. I could hardly talk to them because they spoke so fast, but I started buying amps and would sell them to somebody and buy another one, things like that."

(...) From Manny’s, Hood purchased the blonde cab, containing two 12-inch speakers, originally to use as an extension cabinet with the bass amp he was using. He ended up selling that amp. Now he had an extra cabinet. He then purchased a black Tolex-covered Bassman piggyback amp. “And I can’t remember why I did it, but I brought the blonde cabinet to 3614 (Jackson Hwy.) and we started recording that and using the black Bassman head with it, to monitor myself. Sometimes they’d mic it and sometimes we’d go direct. But I used it always as a monitor. In a studio full of loud guitars and keyboards and everything, you just can’t hear the bass well, even with the headphones. It’s getting where nowadays they have so many channels on the recording stuff they can use several channels for a bass. A long time ago you were lucky if you’d get one channel.”

A 6G6 cabinet was used on "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

And guess what we came up with for Bill Wyman? Do you remember those Plexiglas body basses that were around then?

I checked with David Hood later and he says it was a Dan Armstrong. So to the best of our recollection, that’s what it was. He played through David’s Fender Bassman setup, the tube head and separate box.

(...) Did you have a mic on the bass amp?

Yes, the bass guitar mic was an RCA 44. We didn’t have direct back in those days.

An image of Hood's Bassman rig, taken from this March 1, 2019 al.com interview, reveals a blonde 6G6 cabinet as part of the stack.

That said, the bass amplifier rig Hood used for his classic Muscle Shoals Sound Studios work is a Fender Bassman amp head and blonde Fender speaker cabinet.

In 2016, Muscle Shoals Sound reopened at original Sheffield location 3614 Jackson Hwy. and restored to retro ’60s/'70s prime. Hood’s rig was returned to the same spot it was during many vintage sessions. Against the studio wall, just left of the drum booth.

Hood thinks he acquired the Fender head and cabinet in the mid to late '60s.

"My father was in the tire business and got hooked up with a purchasing-agent-type place who would connect you with people to buy things wholesale," Hood says. "They hooked us up with Manny's Music in New York, on 48th Street. It's no longer there, but it was a famous music store. I would call and order things from them. I could hardly talk to them because they spoke so fast, but I started buying amps and would sell them to somebody and buy another one, things like that."

(...) From Manny’s, Hood purchased the blonde cab, containing two 12-inch speakers, originally to use as an extension cabinet with the bass amp he was using. He ended up selling that amp. Now he had an extra cabinet. He then purchased a black Tolex-covered Bassman piggyback amp. “And I can’t remember why I did it, but I brought the blonde cabinet to 3614 (Jackson Hwy.) and we started recording that and using the black Bassman head with it, to monitor myself. Sometimes they’d mic it and sometimes we’d go direct. But I used it always as a monitor. In a studio full of loud guitars and keyboards and everything, you just can’t hear the bass well, even with the headphones. It’s getting where nowadays they have so many channels on the recording stuff they can use several channels for a bass. A long time ago you were lucky if you’d get one channel.”

Used for "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

(...) Did you have a mic on the bass amp?

Yes, the bass guitar mic was an RCA 44. We didn’t have direct back in those days.

Used on Richards' electric guitar for "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

On the guitar amplifiers, let’s see there were two different ones, on Mick’s I had a SM57, and then on the other I was using… I might have been using an RE15 on Keith. But I had a real problem with Keith because he was running a Fender Twin amp wide open, I mean that sucker was getting it.

I had a real problem with distortion going on, but I happened to remember that my maintenance guy, about a month before that, had left me a 20 dB pad that he had made, a homemade pad, so I just stuck it in between. So I dropped that level before it hit the front of the Universal Audio and it saved the day. Otherwise, I would have been hosed. I still thank God for that. I would have just been screwed. So on Keith’s amp… oh no, I remember what was on his amp, an RCA 77DX, because I was having to get that level down any way I could, it was a ribbon mic.

With the pad and that RCA, I made it, just barely. A lot of that had to do with how it sounded, and I was always real pleased with that guitar sound. (...) And the sound of Keith’s guitar is so good, and I really attribute it to that RCA DX77 with the pad, going into that Universal Audio tube console which warmed it up, too. Pretty wild, huh?

Used during the Muscle Shoals sessions, particularly for "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

What guitar was Keith playing?

It was a Gibson, but not a Les Paul. Do you know that model that was right under the Les Paul, the solid body double cutaway-what is that? Oh yeah, the SG. I think it was an SG, and as I recall it was black. I remember it had those sharp horns on the cutaways. That’s what he played most of the time he was here.

Used on the bass drum for "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

On the bass drum we used the Electro-Voice 666, a fantastic dynamic mic for the time. It was on a little stand looking to the backside of the drum.

Used as an overhead mic for "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

We only had three mics on the drums. We ran a (Neumann) U47 up over the top up over the top, about nose high to the drummer. We had a high stand out in front, with the mic facing downward at the kit, from the bass drum in with a little boom that came over the snare.

So it gave a good overview of the whole kit, so you could play with a lot of dynamics and you could get an incredible sound. In fact, Charlie Watts wanted to buy that microphone! But of course, I wouldn’t sell it. He couldn’t get over the sound we were getting.

Used on the vocals for "You Gotta Move", "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar", as stated by mix engineer Jimmy Johnson in this September 21, 2018 ProSoundWeb interview.

On the piano I was using only one mic, not two, so I had to move it around to find the hot spot. I’m going to have to think on that one. I think it was a U47, that was the other one, because three was all we had. And we used them all on every session. Jagger sang on a U47.

So the U47 on Jagger, that was a live vocal track? Or was it overdubbed?

I don’t think so, not unless he had to fix something in London. The only overdub I remember was the percussion that he did. He had mono earphones of course, and they were hearing what the board was hearing, they couldn’t get a separate mix.